Oscar-winner Ernest Borgnine dies

ERNEST Borgnine, the beefy screen star known for blustery, often villainous roles, but who won the best-actor Oscar for playing against type as a lovesick butcher in Marty in 1955, has died. He was 95.

His longtime spokesman, Harry Flynn, said Borgnine died of renal failure at Cedars-Sinai Medical Centre with his wife and children at his side.

Borgnine, who endeared himself to a generation of Baby Boomers with the 1960s TV comedy McHale's Navy, first attracted notice in the early 1950s in villain roles, notably as the vicious Fatso Judson, who beat Frank Sinatra to death in From Here to Eternity.

Then came Marty, a low-budget film based on a Paddy Chayefsky television play that starred Rod Steiger.

Borgnine played a 34-year-old who fears he is so unattractive he will never find romance.